out his senses to her, get her to look down here, her gaze meeting his one last time. But he didn’t.
Goodbye, Mackenzie.
And her taxi drove away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“THE THING IS smashed to hell. It’s amazing it holds a charge.” Dom leaned in as Cordell Kincade, the Agency’s tech engineer, opened the back of the cell phone and pulled out the data card with a small pair of tweezers.
“Holds a charge? Dom, I’m shocked it even powers up. Look at the damage within the internal casing. The sim card reader assembly is completely shot. Who knows about the circuit board. Let’s hope the read/write flash…”
As Cordell’s voice droned on with a bunch of tech bullshit, Dom thought about a wispy dress, a fragrant hollow behind delicate ears, a flash of spunky green eyes and a pair of long legs that encircled him and refused to let go.
Should he have chased after her? Begged her to come home with him? Would he be with her now, making love to her in his bed? He yearned for the impossible. To see her naked again, but not as her nursemaid or a lascivious spy outside her kitchen window.
Cordell paused, yanking Dom from his daydream.
“Yes, yes. That’s all fine, but can you get the data?”
“I’m afraid the flash memory is corrupt, but let’s see if I can get it fired up enough to extract something.” Cordell plugged the tiny card into a reader device hooked to his computer. “Cross your fingers. I’ll get only one shot. Every time a damaged drive is accessed, it lessens the chance of being able to retrieve the data. I’d have a better chance if they made these next generation flash memory chips—”
Dom pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to block out Cordell’s geek-speak.
Although he had felt himself slipping a few times tonight, overall he was pleased he’d been able to control the urge to drink from Mackenzie again, even when she was in his arms. God, she felt so good.
But her reactions were the most shocking. Most humans instinctively reacted with the flight instinct, sensing the innate danger of a predator. When she witnessed his physiological hunger changes, he felt her fear at first, but she shoved it away with anger. He’d never seen a human do that before. And she thought he was having an orgasm? Good God. If she only knew.
But almost more than the desire to drink from her—hell, he’d have that kind of urge around a sweetblooded male—was a deep-seated longing to get to know her on a deeper level. What made her happy? What made her sad? What did she dream of doing one day? If she could travel to anywhere in the world, where would she go and why? He imagined that as she told him these things, she’d be absently twisting a piece of his hair around her fingers because it helped her think. With his eyes closed, he’d listen, letting her words soak in until they became a part of him, too.
God, he really needed to focus here. He straddled an empty chair and tried to listen to the yapping, but it was no use.
“You’re losing me,” Dom said, which got an eyebrow raise from Cordell. “All I want to know is if you can get that data off the phone.”
“Sorry. It’s just that— Okay, here we go.” Cordell punched several keys and they waited as the light on the device blinked red. “Come on, come on. This could take a few moments.”
The big man wheeled back and absently kneaded his thighs. Cordell would be embarrassed to know how much he did that. Dom knew it was from the spinal cord injury he’d suffered as a human. It was only after he changed that the cord had rejuvenated and he was able to walk again. But he still had a sort of phantom limb-like pain. Dom guessed it bothered him more than he let on.
“Sorry, Dom, but it’s not looking good. It’ll blink green if it’s reading the card. Oh, great. This isn’t good at all.” Cordell’s fingers flew across the keyboard and an error message popped up. “‘Inability to read external Drive G.’ I was afraid of that. Okay, okay, I know you’re corrupt. But just give me what I want and I’ll let you roll over and go to sleep.”
Dom managed a grim smile. Cordell talked to his tech devices when he wanted them to do something. Strange thing was they usually complied.